As a rule, always use the lowest gain setting on any amp, or preamp unless you cannot achieve the desired volume with the volume knob For the bryston hpa this is very much the case. Lower gain means lower noise in MOST circuits. Use lower gain and turn volume up to safe comfortable listening...

Definitely not bright. Very very neutral character. Coming from a warm amp or tubes in relative terms one might mistake it as bright, but bright it is not. ... Id have a hard time finding something more neutral.. Neither bright nor warm.

Cheers Murray! good  find.  something like this might be necessary. if bryston produces a second gen bha i'll e first in line. it sounds so goood.

motorized or unmotorized pots are noisey and cause sound quality issues and wear out ... i really dislike them. this wouldnt be a great way to add a remote function for volume. digitally controlled (by rotary  encoder) relay-controlled resistor-based attenuators can be made to offer 0.5db...

 a small drive-only enclosure, using the bdp to control playback and bda to decode the audio? i like this idea!   Better - yet... id suggest a CD/DVD-A/SA-CD/BR transport/drive integrated within a bdp, or bdp-like, digital player. As the transport alone is incredibly simple and the drive...

 a small drive-only enclosure, using the bdp to control playback and bda to decode the audio? i like this idea!   Better - yet... id suggest a CD/DVD-A/SA-CD/BR transport/drive integrated within a bdp, or bdp-like, digital player. As the transport alone is incredibly simple and the drive...

Personal review of BHA-1 I have the bha-1 headphone amp and the bda-1 dac patched to an iMac by aes/ebu via an April Music Stello u3, giving a full compliment of supported sample rates by xmos. By a-b comparison, the onboard usb is less impressive and not as versatile, so im pleased to have the...

Hahahahaha!   i need to lay off the late night coffee! thought id summarize. Hope you prefer the remastered edition.       so glad you have world class sense of humour. :D may this thread rest in peace.

This heated debate shouldnt be about whos right or wrong. certainly it shouldnt be about putting  others down for experiencing things differently. We all do. 

Quote: I cant tell you if its better or different, but i can tell you i love my bda-1 i play audio from my imac via audirvana through april music stello u3 usb-aes/ebu. It helps me separate my components well from my computer, and sounds terrific. Never a hiccup. Just absolutely pure...

Quote: Any favourite cans so far? All around? For classical?   market research must be pretty nice ;)

Quote: Mine is exactly the same... A bunch at the very beginning, then a whole lot of nothing, then  just before the end, it jumps in output. occasionally i wish it appeared more linear, but i see the benefit of how it is and its not a problem for me.    Wish it had a cross-feed feature...

bump

So down! It'll be exam time, but i'll for sure take the afternoon off to come hangout. Andrew

I know exactly what you mean ol'cheez. I feel like I can hear differences in power cords, but I cant help but doubt myself. My trained scientific logically minded brain wants peer reviewed double blind random controlled head to head and tells me to smarten up and be happy, but my eccentric...